Facing the World With an Open Mind

You might have already seen the video of Iowan Zach Wahls speaking to the Iowa House of Representatives in opposition of the House resolution to introduce an amendment to the Iowa Constitution defining marriage to be between one man and one woman. If you haven't seen the video of this extraordinary young man, here's the YouTube link:


Zach Wahl speech


His impassioned plea, sadly, fell on deaf ears. The House passed the resolution by a vote of 62-37. I say to those 62 members of the House, you do not represent me, my friends, my family, or the Iowa that I know.


Iowans have long celebrated freedoms and individual rights.

• As early as 1839, the Supreme Court of Iowa refused to treat a human being as property or enforce a contract for slavery, holding that Iowa’s laws must extend to people of all skin colors.
• The University of Iowa become the first public university in the country to admit women and men on an equal basis (1885), to grant a law degree to a woman (Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, 1873), to grant a law degree to an African American (G. Alexander Clark, 1879), to put an African American on a varsity athletic squad (Frank Kinney Holbrook, 1895), and to offer insurance benefits to employees' domestic partners (1993).
• By 1851, six years before the state constitution was drafted, laws banning mixed marriages had already disappeared from the books, over 100 years before the Supreme Court banned such laws as unconstitutional in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. 

In a unanimous vote on April 3, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court again stood up for individual freedoms and upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and woman. Iowa became one of just three states, and the only one in the Midwest, where gays and lesbians can marry. My pride with our progressive, yet humble, state lasted exactly 19 months. On November 3, 2010, the three Supreme Court justices up for retention were voted out of office, the first time any judge had been voted out since the judicial selection system was implemented in 1962. 

This makes me angry and sad. I grew up in Farley, which back in my day probably topped out at around 1,100 residents. Unless I missed someone, everyone was white, most everyone was Catholic, a majority were Democrats, and--back then--hardly anyone got a divorce. Dads worked, many moms stayed home with their kids. It wasn't a cosmopolitan lifestyle, but it was a good life. And, what I find remarkable is that having grown up in this completely homogeneous environment, my parents without even being overt or necessarily progressive, instilled in me a respect and understanding for people from all walks of life. 

I can honestly say that I didn't consciously even know any gay people or really even know what it meant to be gay until possibly my sophomore year of college. (See, I said I was kind of sheltered.) OK, there is a caveat, we had a teacher in junior high and my freshman year of high school who, in retrospect, was probably gay. The fact that he was also African-American made him even more exciting to us. What did we know? We were silly adolescents. We thought he was really cool with his fancy suits, platform shoes, and ascot ties. OK, OK, and he was the English and Drama teacher. I know, I'm falling for all the typical stereotypes here. He would make an interesting character on "Glee." One year, he just wasn't there when we came back from summer break. I don't know what ever happened to him, but I will say, I loved Freshman English class with him. He could read a story like no other.   

So, I started to understand and know gay people when I was a sophomore, but still, I can't say that any were really my close friends. That came later, after college, when I was working at my first job with a bunch of other twentysomethings fresh out of college. Since then, I've gained deep and longstanding friendships with many gays and lesbians and many of my respected colleagues in my professional career are gay.

I cannot understand, why, in a country that was built on religious freedom, there is a faction of the country who wants to deny two people who are in love the ability to join together in a lasting union that is recognized and afforded all the rights and privileges that men and women are allowed. What is it that makes them so opposed? I say that they clearly do not know any gay people. That must be it. Honestly, the Jesus that I know and the Jesus I believe in accepted ALL people. I contend that if Jesus were alive today, he would perform the marriage for two people who were devoted to each other and wanted to profess that love before God.

So conflicted.

Maybe, if there are more Zach Wahls, the world will eventually come to respect all families regardless of their makeup.



(Note: Facts about the University of Iowa taken from the University of Iowa Web site.)







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